Vowel System S O .... H OW DID C ALIFORNIA VOWELS END UP IN S OUTHERN - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

N ORTHERN C ALIFORNIA V OWELS I N S OUTHERN I LLINOIS Douglas S. Bigham University of Texas at Austin douglas.s.bigham@gmail.com American Dialect Society Annual Meeting at the annual meeting of the Linguistic Society of America 8-10 January, 2009, San Francisco

T HE N ORTHERN C ALIFORNIA V OWEL S HIFT : P RINCIPAL F EATURES

S OUTHERN I LLINOIS

M ETHODOLOGY  Emerging Adult (Arnett, 2001) speakers  21 males; 20 females  White/Caucasian, heterosexual  Southern Illinois “born & raised”  Word list reading task  11 stressable monophthongs  b_t and h_d contexts  5 repetitions per vowel per contexts (110 tokens per speaker)  F1, F2, duration measured with Praat  Data normalized using a modification of Watt & Fabricius (see Bigham, 2008)

S OUTHERN I LLINOIS V OWELS : F EMALES

S OUTHERN I LLINOIS V OWELS : M ALES

S OUTHERN I LLINOIS V OWELS : A LL S PEAKERS , N ORMALIZED M EANS

“Squished” Vowel System

S O .... H OW DID C ALIFORNIA VOWELS END UP IN S OUTHERN I LLINOIS ?  The “Southern Illinois” vowel system shares many variants with the “Northern California” vowel system  Exceptions: GOAT-fronting, LOT~THOUGHT  Probably not migration or stylistic choices  Not a “geographically - based” vowel system  Convergent Evolution of the vowel space  Not a vowel “system” but only a statistical artifact

PROBABLY NOT…  Population migration  Vowel variations brought to Illinois from California  Vowel variations brought from Illinois to California  “Social” style  “petulant drama princess” => Northern California  “chill; mellow” => Southern Illinois  speakers are not necessarily from the same “clique”

N ON -G EOGRAPHICALLY B ASED S YSTEM  GEOGRAPHY is linguistically non-agentive  Non-geographically bound social networks  A new “emerging adult” dialect  Myspace, Facebook, Youtube, live gaming, etc.  Interactive, two-way communication  Unlike “old media”

CONVERGENT EVOLUTION  Convergent Evolution-1: Linguistic Drift  Variants are related in a chain-shift  (1) LOT moves toward or merges with THOUGHT  (2) TRAP moves back / STRUT moves forward  (3) DRESS moves down / KIT moves down  Problems for GOOSE, GOAT, FOOT  Convergent Evolution-2: Dialect Contact  So.Ill. = transition zone; Northern~Midland~Southern  Western North America = mixed settlement history  GOAT- fronting is specific to the “petulant drama princess”

V OWEL “S YSTEM ” AS S TATISTICAL A RTIFACT  Are vowels mathematical objects?  What is the normal distribution of F1 and F2 for a given vowel when averaging data from different numbers of speakers, tokens, and consonantal contexts?  How do these and other (N)s change the outcome? DSB Hagi. PB HGCW CPJ Speakers 20f/21m 9f/6m 28f/3m 48f/45m 4f/4m Tokens 5 3 1 1 5 Contexts 2 3 1 1 1 Total (N) 200/210 81/54 28/33 48/45 20/20

S UMMARY & C ONCLUSIONS  Southern Illinois vowels are most like California vowels, not the vowels found in the surrounding or nearby dialects. Why?  Geographically “free” interactive media communities  Convergent Evolution of the vowel system  Statistical artifact of the data

O UTCOME & M AJOR Q UESTIONS  The occurrence of Northern California-like variants in Southern Illinois challenges traditional models of dialect acquisition and dialect spread.  Q: What is the effect of new media on language?  Q: Which parts of a vowel system are linked and in what ways?  Q: How many speakers, tokens, and contexts do we need to measure for dialect description?

T HANK Y OU ! Northern California Vowels in Southern Illinois Douglas S. Bigham University of Texas at Austin douglas.s.bigham@gmail.com American Dialect Society Annual Meeting at the annual meeting of the Linguistic Society of America 8-10 January, 2009, San Francisco ***References and handouts available by e-mail***

C ALI V OWELS IN S O ILL  TRAP split:  FOOT fronting & lowering  Female, 18, “very good about”  Female, 18, “class” / “Anna”  Male, 18, “hood”  Male, 18, “class” / “pan”  But not GOAT fronting:  Female, 18, “social”  KIT, DRESS lowering:  Male, 18, “go”  Males, 18, “Illinoiser” / “metals”  Female, 18, “at Fred’s and talk to my friends ”